Bloomberg Law: US Signals Corporate Crime Shifts in Pair of Fraud Settlements

Since Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco’s October announcement of the US Department of Justice’s goal to crackdown on white-collar crime and corporate wrongdoing, two corporate criminal resolutions have come to fruition. NatWest Markets PLC, a financial services firm, pleaded guilty to wire and securities fraud and housing contractor Balfour Beatty Communities LLC entered a guilty plea for defrauding US Military branches. “These resolutions help flesh out what the new policy is exactly,” said Benjamin Singer, a white-collar defense partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP. He also noted that Monaco’s mandate to take prior settlements into account did not clarify if a “no-admit, no-deny civil settlement” would be taken into account by the DOJ. “Well, now we know it is included. That is a significant change in DOJ corporate criminal policy,” Singer added.

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